SPECULATION IS rife that North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il is planning a trip to Beijing, a visit that could signal his country’s return to stalled China-hosted international disarmament talks on its nuclear weapons programme.
Mr Kim’s movements are a closely guarded secret. Korea-watchers keep their eyes open for a sighting of his specially fitted train, which he used to come to China – North Korea’s only meaningful ally in international terms – in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006.
The North Korean leader has a phobia about flying and makes any long-distance journeys using his legendary train, which is rumoured to have 21 carriages and carry a batch of specially flown-in Bordeaux wines, lobster tanks and two armoured Mercedes cars.
South Korean officials said last week there was a “high level of possibility” that Mr Kim would soon visit China.
Relations between China, whose aid largely props up North Korea, and Pyongyang have been tense because of friction over nuclear missile tests and the North’s refusal to return to six-country talks hosted by Beijing on the nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula.
However, the visit is believed not to have happened yet, as Mr Kim hosted a weekend dinner in Pyongyang for the new Chinese ambassador, Liu Hongcai, as well as the visiting Chinese Tianjin women’s volleyball team.
The US special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, visited Pyongyang last December, but Washington has made it clear that it sees North Korea’s return to the six-party talks as a basic condition for continued dialogue with Pyongyang.
For its part, North Korea has said several times that it will not to return to the talks unless Washington commits to the discussion of a peace treaty and the lifting of sanctions.
The trip to China will be aimed at securing economic aid to help prop up the North’s flagging economy, which has been badly hit by sanctions imposed by the United Nations after it tested nuclear weapons last year.
North Korea had agreed in previous rounds of the six-nation talks, which include both Koreas, Russia, the US, Japan and host China, to end its nuclear weapons programme in return for security guarantees and fuel aid.
The North quit the talks in April last year and said it would resume production of weapons-grade plutonium.
It then carried out its second atomic weapons test the following month.